Erich Fromm on Freedom – Between Pesach and Shavu’ot

I am currently reading a book by Erich Fromm called Escape from Freedom. Broadly speaking, it deals with freedom, the challenges it presents, and the various responses to it. For Fromm, one of man’s central fears is the fear of being alone and isolated from the world around him. (I use “him” and “man” as gender-neutral throughout.) On the individual level, part of the maturing process is “individuation,” in which a person sees himself more and more as separate and distinct from his parents, his family, and his surroundings, with his own ideas, desires, will, and character. On a societal level, Fromm sees the same process happening in history, where man emerged from feeling completely a part of the animal kingdom and the natural world around him to becoming distinct from it. Both of these processes result in anxiety and isolation. Similarly, the historical trend toward greater individual freedoms resulted in the same anxieties. Having a set place in society may have been constricting, but it was, at the same time, very comforting. One knew his place, and that place saved him from isolation. He was part of a greater pattern, part of his social caste, part of his church. Modern man in democratic societies, with his immense personal freedoms, is challenged by that freedom. In Fromm’s words, we have achieved “Freedom From.” Freedom from tyranny, freedom from religious oppression, etc. But the challenge is to have “Freedom To.” What do we do with that freedom? In Fromm’s view, rather than productively dealing with the challenge, modern man instead runs from that challenge in many different ways. The most common in non-authoritarian societies is conformity. If I am not too different, I am not alone. To quote him:

Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions. Human relations are essentially those of alienated automatons, each basing his security on staying close to the herd, and not being different in thought, feeling or action. While everybody tries to be as close as possible to the rest, everybody remains utterly alone, pervaded by the deep sense of insecurity, anxiety and guilt which always results when human separateness cannot be overcome…. Man overcomes his unconscious despair by the routine of amusement, the passive consumption of sounds and sights offered by the amusement industry; furthermore by the satisfaction of buying ever new things, and soon exchanging them for others.

In Fromm’s view, there is only one healthy response to the problem of isolation. The solution is not to run away from the process of individuation and freedom. On the contrary, man must become an individual who stands on his own two feet and is free to express his individual creativity and life forces in an unhindered way. This is the gift that the “Freedom From” bestows. But he must reconnect, without losing his individuality, to the world around him. In Fromm’s view, he reconnects with the inanimate world through productive work, and he reconnects with humanity through love. Fromm calls love the only healthy solution to the problem of existence.

Fromm’s framework of “Freedom From” and “Freedom To” fits quite nicely into the classic Jewish progression of Yetzia’at Mitzrayim, the Exodus celebrated on Pesach, followed by Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah on Shavuot. This progression is sometimes presented in Chaza”l and other sources as going from slaves of Pharaoh to being slaves to God. On its face, this presentation does not parallel Fromm’s progression at all. It is, rather, the picture of running away from the freedom of the Exodus into the arms of another Master, “escaping from freedom” rather than embracing it. But this reflects a superficial understanding of the progression, which relates to the paradoxical nature of the service of God in the eyes of Chazal. Service to man is constricting and limiting, involving the unnatural bending of the will to the will of another human, damming up the natural creativity and life of the individual. It is true that there is a strain within Judaism that seems to emphasize this aspect of the service of God, that of bending one’s unwilling nature to conform to an outside influence, from “aseh retzoncha kirtzono” on down. Ideally, though, service of God is different from service to man. It is service to the Being Who created man, Who knows his inner nature, and Who breathed from His essence into his soul. There is a definite strain in Judaism, from Chazal on (though it is most explicitly developed in the Chassidic tradition), of Torah as self-actualizing, Torah as freeing one to be oneself, Torah as facilitating self-discovery, Torah as revealing the true nature of man to himself. It is to this that Chazal refer when they say, in reference to the two tablets of the covenant, “Charut al haluchot – al tikrei Charut, ela cheirut.” “Chiseled onto the tablets – do not read chiseled (charut), rather freedom (cheirut).” It is not the bending of the individual will to an external master, but rather living in consonance with the Master who resides both without and within.

Daily experience interacting with committed Jews turns up both kinds of people, or more precisely, people for whom one or the other type of service is dominant. There are some for whom God, with His Torah, is a harsh, alien master. Their sense of obligation is strong, and is the overriding and overwhelming force in their religious life. Religion offers solace from a tumultuous world that is scary for the individual, a place of concrete obligations and life-paths. It would be fair to say, I think, that there is a hint of “escaping from freedom” in this approach, taken too far. There are others for whom the discipline and obligation of Torah are a framework for personal fulfillment, growth, creativity, and individuality. I think this is the ideal approach, but of course has its dangers as well if taken to an extreme. If we merit it, a life of Torah can be our “Freedom To,” but if not, we can end up using it to escape from freedom ourselves.

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To put this in a political light, much of left-leaning ideology focuses on the escape from the sometimes-harsh but distilling reality that a free, capitalist system provides.

The ever-escalating role of government in our economic and social affairs, and the strident push for the government to provide more than the basic necessities illustrates that individuals would rather have the government limit the full manifestation of their potential. The desire for government limitation of personal freedom stems from a fear that when one is given full access to freedom and self-actualization, one will fail and have no one to blame but himself.

This is why America is the barometer of man’s potential. It is a difficult place to live because succeeding in America shows to all around, more than anywhere else, that the successor has utilized his freedom correctly. And the person who is a failure…well that is more his own fault than anywhere else on the planet.

The real political question should be: do you fear your own self-actualization?